Just got me one of these:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hp-proliant-microserver-221-81-with-100-hp-cashback-121-81/888083?page=28

For £130 with low power usage can't really complain, going to get rid of the D-Link NAS (Which I've only had for a month  ) and use this I expect, and going to run a variety of things on this instead!

Also guide with all driver and upgrade info here:
http://www.tekforums.net/guides-projects/hp-proliant-microserver-purchase-upgrade-setup-guide/

Looks excellent. Great value for a 4 bay solution (assuming the cashback goes to plan).

that does look sweet.

Quote from: XEntity on March 19, 2011, 01:03:18 AM
Just got me one of these:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/hp-proliant-microserver-221-81-with-100-hp-cashback-121-81/888083?page=28

For £130 with low power usage can't really complain, going to get rid of the D-Link NAS (Which I've only had for a month  ) and use this I expect, and going to run a variety of things on this instead!

(Image removed from quote.)

How much do you want for the d-link?  I was just thinking I should have got two.

I can't find much info on this, what RAID levels does it support? It also isn't hot-swap (not the end of the world of course) seems like a bargain for the money though. Really tempted to get one if I get paid in time!

Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 20, 2011, 15:38:18 PM
I can't find much info on this, what RAID levels does it support? It also isn't hot-swap (not the end of the world of course) seems like a bargain for the money though. Really tempted to get one if I get paid in time!

#

RAID 0 and 1

No RAID 5 'age?? damn!

I believe the raid on this is also software based not hardware, but some people have then purchased a RAID card to go in one of the PCI-X slots and ignored the onboard raid. However a friend of mine is looking to raid 5 his, I'll have a word with him to see how he is going to do it?

WRT selling mine, I'll get back to you as might sell it to a friend (means I wont have to post it then!) If not I'll find out how much postage is..

Quote from: XEntity on March 20, 2011, 23:31:16 PM
I believe the raid on this is also software based not hardware, but some people have then purchased a RAID card to go in one of the PCI-X slots and ignored the onboard raid. However a friend of mine is looking to raid 5 his, I'll have a word with him to see how he is going to do it?

That would be appreciated, seems a bit pointless to me having more than 2 bays and not being able to RAID other than 0 or 1!

He's not in today it turns out, he'll be in tomorrow, but apparently as it is software based raid, you can run software RAID 5, not sure if freeNAS does this, apparently CentOS does (But this kind of depends on your OS choice, I'd say windows was out of the question at a guess?)

Some people have used the HP SmartArray P410 which at a quick look is another £130+ quid, but then have run 4x3.5 and 4x2.5in disks, putting 4 in the 5 1/4 bay.

I'll let you know when I speak to him tomorrow to see what he is doing anyway.

I'm probably going to mirror mine and I have a Mini 8GB SSD which came out of my netbook, for which I have a tiny USB caddy to attached to the internal USB port, giving me the use of the full 4 HD bays and DVD drive in the top, which may get upgraded to an additional HD in the future if capacity calls for it!

Quote from: XEntity on March 20, 2011, 23:31:16 PM
WRT selling mine, I'll get back to you as might sell it to a friend (means I wont have to post it then!) If not I'll find out how much postage is..

Depending how far away you are, I could always collect.

hmmm looking at some reviews, these seem a little under powered for my needs (
Pity.. I'll have to fork out for a qnap insead

Don't they normally have ml110s and 115s on special 99 days out of 100?

^ That's a cute chassis but sounds pretty gutless.

Quote from: soopahfly on March 21, 2011, 16:38:07 PM

Quote from: XEntity on March 20, 2011, 23:31:16 PM
WRT selling mine, I'll get back to you as might sell it to a friend (means I wont have to post it then!) If not I'll find out how much postage is..

Depending how far away you are, I could always collect.

Bristol so quite far away

Quote from: Pete on March 21, 2011, 18:10:00 PM
Don't they normally have ml110s and 115s on special 99 days out of 100?

^ That's a cute chassis but sounds pretty gutless.

It's not really comparable in terms of usage, so the MLs run Xeon processors I believe and is for heavy duty server usage, as where the micro server is designed for a lower CPU over head and very low power consumption (typically <40watts reading the reviews). So no it's not going to be a multi function domain controller/VM host or anything like that, but as a file server and running a few other tasks like I have mentioned above, you would be hard pushed to get anything at that power consumption level for that cost.

The CPU isn't supposed to be too bad either, it's supposed to be better than the equivalent Atom, which it is essentially AMDs version of this..
If you check the HUKD thread, there are some people who have put in a HD decoding graphics card and running it as a media centre computer without problems.

I bought this so I had a computer that could be always on, with minimal cost and maximum functionality, it's not a perfect machine, but I think for it's target market you can't get much better, H/W raid would make it much better, but look at the cost vs those dedicated NAS boxes and the flexibility of this..